Teachers’ Absenteeism Troubles L.A. District : Schools: They miss an average of 12 days a year. Educators cast doubt on the effectiveness of substitutes.

Teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District miss an average of 12 days a year, an absence rate that the teachers union calls “frightening” and that disrupts learning by forcing the widespread use of substitutes.

With the call for substitutes so high--at least 1,000 a day, more on Fridays and Mondays--some classrooms go begging. Even when substitutes are available, the quality of the school day suffers, say principals and teachers.

“I don’t care how good a sub is, there’s no replacing a regular classroom teacher,” said Charles Baldwin, principal at Olive Vista Middle School in Sylmar, where teachers missed an average of 18 days last year. “A sub comes in and it’s like a neon sign comes on (in the room) saying ‘Day Off, Day Off.’ ”

The effects can be far more significant than a lost instructional day or class period. Althea Woods, the principal at 99th Street Elementary in Los Angeles, where teachers missed an average of 21 days last year, blames dramatically lower sixth-grade test scores on the high number of absences.

“Positively, those scores were abominable,” Woods said. “I attribute that largely to the fact that these children had substitutes. It’s very disruptive.”

A new incentive program designed to give teachers cash for staying in their classrooms was forgotten almost as soon as it was written into the last teachers contract. Instead, the system encourages teachers to miss school by giving teachers 10 fully paid sick days a year and up to 90 half-paid days. Most teachers work about 180 days a year.

Sick time cannot be cashed out at the end of the year, so there is no financial incentive to stay on the job. Many teachers say they use the time for “mental health” days, doctor’s appointments or when their own children need child care.

Of the district’s 33,000 teachers, just over 18,000 missed at least seven days of school last year. More than 8,000 missed 13 or more days. Just 5,364 teachers had perfect attendance.

“As you may have heard before, our absentee rate is frightening,” said Sam Kresner, the director of organizational services for United Teachers-Los Angeles, in a recent edition of the union’s newspaper. “This absenteeism creates huge expenditures we would like to avoid.”

Teachers argue that the profession is stressful, that they do get sick and that little can be done to curb those who abuse the system.

“We’re supposed to be the cure-all for everything--social needs, parental needs,” said Eileen Avneri, a teacher at Olive Vista Middle School. “It is extremely stressful. In every profession, you’re going to have people who take advantage of the system and you’ll have people who have 200 days banked. . . . It bothers me as much as it bothers the parents.”

And parents are definitely bothered by the profusion of substitute teachers.

Janice Vassil, a Northridge parent, was so frustrated by the parade of substitute teachers in her daughter’s fifth-grade classroom that she nearly pulled out of a highly prized magnet school.

“I put my kids in school to learn,” said Vassil, who kept her daughter at Lorne Street Magnet in Northridge after a new permanent teacher was assigned. “When a sub comes in, it’s just not the same in the classroom. There’s just not a lot of learning.”

Jan Schneider, whose granddaughter attends a San Fernando Valley high school, said teacher absences have become more than an annoyance; they are affecting students’ work. “The kids basically learn nothing that day unless the teachers leave detailed work plans. Most of the time, I think they (the substitutes) sit up there and read and ignore the kids.”

The average of 12 sick days a year in Los Angeles Unified has remained steady for several years, but district officials do not know how it compares to other large school systems. Most school districts around the country have focused on reducing student absences and paid little attention to teacher absenteeism, and don’t track teacher absences from year to year.

Other districts exclude from their statistics teachers on maternity leave or long-term sick leave. On that basis, for example, in Dade County, Florida--the nation’s third-largest school district--teachers miss an average of about six days a year. By the same accounting, San Diego Unified teachers missed an average of 5.5 days.

The Pasadena Unified School District stopped paying teachers for jury duty to cut down on absences. Supt. Vera Vignes, who said the decision was reached in contract negotiations, said the result has been fewer substitutes and more teachers on the job. In Los Angeles, the union contract encourages teachers to defer jury duty to vacation time, but they can be paid for up to 20 days of service.

“Obviously, teaching is a difficult and stressful job,” said Gene Tucker, the former superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and a professor of education at UCLA. “But teachers only have about 180 days with children. I always felt these days are precious.”

While most national education studies have focused on student attendance, little has been done on teacher absences. Charles Kerchner, a professor of education at the Claremont Graduate School, said most of the debate about teacher absenteeism is based on legend rather than facts.

“There’s a folklore that says that teachers in big cities tend to be sick more and take what’s known as mental health days,” Kerchner said. “I don’t think Los Angeles hires sicker teachers. There might be a work placement issue here--there’s something going on here with the nature of the conditions of the places where they work. Urban schools represent tough places to work.”

Teachers say their morale has dropped considerably over the years as their pay has been cut and the school district and union wrangle over contracts. Some teachers say that leads to a higher absentee rate.

“The frustration level is high,” said Carole Rosen-Kaplan, a Birmingham High School teacher. “We’ve had docked pay, we work in overcrowded classrooms. People are really stressed out--I think teaching is getting more and more difficult.”

The incentive program agreed upon during contract negotiations last year was aimed at getting teachers to cover for each other to reduce the number of substitutes hired. At the end of the year, half of the money saved would be paid to teachers.

Both the teachers union and the school district say the program was poorly promoted and lacked leadership. The union’s newspaper ran three short articles on the incentive program over the past year. Helen Bernstein, president of the union, said she lost interest in it.

“Teachers are so plain angry and demoralized with this district,” said Bernstein, whose union also represents substitutes. “Anything they think will help the district, they just won’t do. They are just so worn out.”

Los Angeles Supt. Sid Thompson said the district needs to improve the incentive program to encourage teachers to remain in their classrooms. The district spends about $42.5 million a year on substitutes.

“A substitute just can’t step into a regular teacher’s shoes and expect things to be the same,” Thompson said. “It isn’t just the money we spend on subs that disturbs me. Obviously, the more you have the regular teacher there, the better. It’s to the advantage of the students to have their teacher in the classroom.”

Board of Education President Leticia Quezada says the district and the union need to make the incentive program work but that it hasn’t been a priority. “This year there’s been too many issues to contend with,” Quezada said. “We have in this last year gone through major efforts in this district that have caused some important items to be left unattended. This was one of them.”

Teachers who were hired after 1987 or who are close to retirement are more inclined to take time off, according to the union and school officials, because they cannot apply their unused sick days toward state retirement benefits. The law was changed in 1987 so that teachers can no longer use accumulated sick time for higher pensions.

When teachers are sick longer than five days, principals are supposed to be given doctor’s notes. After 20 days, teachers need to supply the principal with a formal illness leave request. But principals say they often are busy with other issues and don’t enforce the doctor’s note rule.

Debbie Leidner, the former principal at Marshall High in Los Feliz, said she decreased teacher absences by publicizing them. In regular updates to the staff, Leidner included the number of substitutes hired to cover teachers’ absences.

“People knew we were looking at it and that it was a concern,” Leidner said. “Just by making people aware, it started to decrease.”

The school district has about 3,000 to 3,500 substitutes in a pool, about half of whom do not hold full teaching credentials. The substitutes make $111 a day and some receive health benefits.

Many schools keep their own list of substitutes preferred by the staff and who are called first whenever there is an absence. Some substitutes are so popular, in fact, schools need to make appointments weeks ahead of time, if they know there will be an absence. Other substitutes carry business cards and distribute them around faculty lounges.

District and union officials say substitutes can fill in capably for several days, but they often do not have the same training or experience as regular teachers and can face difficult behavioral problems in the classroom. “It’s not an uncommon complaint that substitutes are not as competent . . . it’s uneven,” said Bob Fisher, head of the district’s substitute division.

When no substitutes are available from the pool, other teachers on campus have to fill in. Even when substitutes show up, principals and teachers say they know that some are not going to handle the classes well.

“When we see them coming down the sidewalk to the office, we just groan,” said Woods, the principal at 99th Street Elementary. “We know nothing’s going to happen. I don’t feel the sub pool is strong at all. I feel it’s very weak . . . a weak link in the district.”

Absent Teachers

Los Angeles Unified School District teachers used an average of 12 sick days each last year. Here is a breakdown.

* 5,364 teachers missed no days.

* 4,356 missed from one to three days.

* 5,569 missed four to six days.

* 5,550 missed seven to nine days.

* 4,487 missed 10 to 12 days.

* 4,813 missed 13 to 19 days.

* 3,239 missed 20 or more days.

HIRING SUBSTITUTES

When teachers are absent, schools try to hire substitutes. For the week of April 4-8, schools requested 5,566 substitute teachers. The following details the need for substitute teachers on one day--April 4, the Monday after a weeklong spring break for most schools. When substitutes are not available, schools cover by combining classes or tapping teachers during their free periods.

Total substitutes requested: 1,329

San Fernando Valley

* Elementary schools: 199

* Middle and high schools: 160

* Unfilled requests: 3

Central Area (East L.A. to Pacific Palisades)

* Elementary schools: 278

* Middle and high schools: 246

* Unfilled requests: 51

South Area (San Pedro to Watts)

* Elementary schools: 255

* Middle and high schools: 191

* Unfilled requests: 99

Source: Los Angeles Unified School District